THE PARASITIC KITE 31 
in this is the secret of its privileged position ; 
unmolested even in the busiest haunts of men, 
secure in crowded city or up-country village, its 
services as scavenger are invaluable, and when 
every other bird has fled it never for a day quits 
its post or ceases its labours. 
We will spare the reader a detailed menu of 
this omnivorous bird, but all who visit Egypt 
ought to bless it, as until some enlightened system 
of sanitation is adopted, this bird, almost unaided, 
makes the land possible to live in, or to be visited 
with any safety or pleasure. If it were exterminated 
as the Kites have been in Great Britain, it is almost 
impossible to exaggerate what would be the dire 
results to the health of the newcomers to this 
old Eastern country. Mercifully there seems no 
sort of chance of its numbers decreasing. Indeed, 
in 1908 I saw behind the New Winter Palace 
Hotel at Luxor, a flock which certainly ran into 
hundreds ; two dead donkeys thrown out behind 
the walls of the Hotel grounds were the cause of 
this vast congregation. They never leave a shred of 
anything more than the bones, picked as clean and 
white as the paper this is printed on; they tidy it 
all up, and for days after the main body of birds 
have left, a stray bird or two comes sweeping down 
